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On Thursday, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mauricio Claver-Carone, accused the Biden administration of handing the bank to China “on a silver platter,” following media reports that the board of directors had recommended that he be removed from his post.
“It is beyond satire that China managed to get into the IDB during Barack Obama’s administration, and now Biden’s administration is handing it over again on a silver platter,” Claver-Carone said in an e-mail statement to Efe.
The executive also called it “shameful” that anonymous U.S. sources are talking to the press before addressing him personally and that the US is not defending Americans in the face of “what is clearly fabricated information.”
Hours earlier, anonymous sources had leaked to the media that the IDB board of directors recommended Claver-Carone’s dismissal and that the decision was now in the hands of the Board of Governors.
According to media reports in April, the IDB was planning to hire an outside firm to investigate Claver-Carone, following a complaint against him after he allegedly had an intimate relationship with a female employee, violating the bank’s code of ethics.
At the time, Claver-Carone attributed the complaint to an “anonymous political and media campaign” spurred by bank staff.
Claver-Carone, a Cuban-American, was elected to head the IDB in September 2020 at the proposal of then-President Donald Trump (2017-2021).
